Signing the body poetic: essays on American Sign Language literature 9780520229761, 9780520935914, 9780520229754

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
CONTENTS OF THE DVD (page xi)
FOREWORD (William C. Stokoe, page xiii)
PREFACE: UTOPIAN GESTURES (W. J. T. Mitchell, page xv)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (page xxv)
USERS' GUIDE (page xxvii)
1 / Introduction (H-Dirksen L. Bauman, Jennifer L. Nelson, Heidi M. Rose, page 1)
PART ONE - FRAMING ASL LITERATURE
2 / Face-to-Face Tradition in the American Deaf Community: Dynamics of the Teller, the Tale, and the Audience (Ben Bahan, page 21)
3 / The Camera as Printing Press: How Film Has Influenced ASL Literature (Christopher B. Krentz, page 51)
4 / Deaf American Theater (Cynthia Peters, page 71)
PART TWO - THE EMBODIED TEXT: "WRITING" AND VISION IN ASL LITERATURE
5 / Getting out of Line: Toward a Visual and Cinematic Poetics of ASL (H-Dirksen L. Bauman, page 95)
6 / Textual Bodies, Bodily Texts (Jennifer L. Nelson, page 118)
7 / The Poet in the Poem in the Performance: The Relation of Body, Self, and Text in ASL Literature (Heidi M. Rose, page 130)
8 / ASL Literature Comes of Ages: Creative "Writing" in the Classroom (Liz Wolter, page 147)
PART THREE - THE POLITICAL TEXT: PERFORMANCE AND IDENTITY IN ASL LITERATURE
9 / "If there are Greek epics, there should be Deaf epics": How Protest Became Poetry (Kristen C. Harmon, page 169)
10 / Visual Screaming: Willy Conley's Deaf Theater and Charlie Chaplin's Silent Cinema (Carol L. Robinson, page 195)
11 / Hearing Things: The Scandal of Speech in Deaf Performance (Michael Davidson, page 216)
AFTERWORD (Carol A. Padden, page 235)
APPENDIX A: TIME LINE OF ASL LITERATURE DEVELOPMENT (page 241)
APPENDIX B: ASL VIDEO REFERENCES (page 253)
CONTRIBUTORS (page 255)
INDEX (page 257)

Citation preview

Signing the Body Poetic

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Signing the Body Poetic ESSAYS ON AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE LITERATURE

H-Dirksen L. Bauman Jennifer L. Nelson Heidi M. Rose EDITORS With a Foreword by William C. Stokoe and a Preface by W. J.T. Mitchell

Includes DVD

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California DVD © 2006 by DawnSignPress and The Regents of the University of California; compiled materials used by permission Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Signing the body poetic : essays on American Sign Language literature / H-Dirksen L. Bauman, Jennifer L. Nelson, Heidi M. Rose, editors ; with a foreword by William C. Stokoe and a preface by W. J. T. Mitchell.

p- cm. “Includes DVD.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-I3: 978-0-520-22975-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-IO: 0-§20-22975-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-I3: 978-0-520-22976-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-IO: O-520-22976-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. American Sign Language literature. 2. Deaf authors. 3. Deaf, Theater for the. 4. Visual literature—History and criticism. I. Bauman, H-Dirksen L., 1964—_ II. Nelson, Jennifer L., 1965— III. Rose, Heidi M., 1963-—

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FIGURE 11.4. White Noise, by Joseph Grigely, 2000, ink and pencil on paper, 26.5 X 19.5 X 13.5, installation view (detail), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Whitney Museum of American Art. Reprinted by permission of the artist.

handwriting, as they instantiate a moment of sociality. That such moments are often about Grigely’s deafness is never far from their materiality: “Do you read lips?” one slip says, followed in the same hand by “Do you prefer written words?” Another reads, “I guess it’s an Economy of Words that I'd like.” Such metatextual remarks remind us that however immediate the exchange of conversation slips might be, the fact of one interlocutor’s “difference” from the other can never be severed from the conversation.

Grigely titles his earlier exhibitions “Conversations with the Hearing,” reversing the ethnographic stereotype of the medical scientist who studies the deaf native. As an ethnologist Grigely collects the “rescued” written slips from various conversations and makes them the subject of his archive. His occasional descriptive plates provide a deadpan narration of a given meeting: “I met Tamara G quite by chance in New York, where she was spending a few months working on a project. She’s from Frankfurt. During the time she was in New York we got to know each other a bit. Occasionally we would go out together to have coffee or to go to exhibition openings— 228 THE POLITICAL TEXT

anything that would give us the opportunity to talk about art and work in an informal context. Tamara has a very nice and distinctive accent when she

writes, and I often wonder if er voice sounds like it looks” (Rubinstein (1996, 132). Surrounding this card are the collected conversation slips between Grigely and Tamara G, placed within an installation entitled Lo Studio/The Study, which appeared at the Venice Biennale in 1995. The painterly trope of the “artist's studio” has been retrofitted to include not only the table on which the artist works but the written detritus of actual meet-

ings, conversations, and relationships. Instead of paints, models, and prints, Grigely’s studio features wastebaskets, piles of paper, and scotch tape— an allegory, to paraphrase Courbet, of the artist's “real life” among hearing people. As Rubinstein (1996) writes of this exhibition, “Grigely’s messy desk installations, which he carefully orchestrates, are not simply replays of

scatter art but his fullest attempt to render the complexities of human conversation’ (133).

At the core of this complexity is an exploration of metonymy, the way that fragments of conversations point to larger utterances and social occasions. In the absence of a descriptive narrative or full sentence, the viewer must supply contexts. And as an allegory of deaf relations to the hearing world, every written mark instantiates a thwarted relationship to the world that takes speech for granted. The phrase “because you can’t,” printed on a slip of orange paper, could be a response to a challenge (“Why can't I do such and such?”) or a truncation of a larger sentence (“Because you can’t do such and such, therefore you must do such and such’). By taking these partial utterances from their communicational conduit and placing them on walls in public spaces, Grigely calls attention to the partial and attenuated nature of deaf/ hearing communication when part of the utterance may be completed by lipreading, body language, or other gestures. And since many of these utterances were written on other ready-to-hand documents—museum brochures, menus, matchbook covers—they gesture outward at a larger social nexus where private conversation meets institutional space.”

The metonymic character of Grigely’s art has an important bearing on what I take to be Grigely’s larger critique of audism. Aaron Williamson (1996), speaking of this aspect of Grigely’s work, notes that the “writing in the presence of the reader produces a wide variety of reactions which may in themselves abbreviate the communication (for example, a realisation by the speaker that the lack of thought in a casual remark is about to become HEARING THINGS 229

graphically apparent)” (35). At another level, this metonymic aspect of communication refers to the construction of deafness itself, the marginalization of a population through medical, pedagogical, or eugenic discourses. While there is no direct correlation between marginal texts and marginal identities, there is always the sense that what is left out of a given remark (“Is storytelling dying out?” one slip says) is the full presence guaranteed by spoken language—a speech that would, ironically, render such conversation slips unnecessary. This critical aspect of Grigely’s textual work can be seen in a pamphlet called Deafand Dumb: A Tale (1994), which consists of pages from various books and treatises from the late Renaissance to the present, all of which deal with deafness. Like his conversation slips, these pages have been separated from their original codex books, yet there is enough information in

each page to indicate what the original book concerns. The pages themselves are facsimiles of actual pages, their antique fonts registering varying periods of print technology, and so have the same rhetorical status as his conversation slips—fragments of actual documents or conversations whose origins have been effaced. The “tale” of the pamphlet’s subtitle concerns the ways that deaf persons have been infantilized, pathologized, or demonized throughout history. The cautionary aspect of the pamphlet is illustrated by its homely epigraph: “This little volume, although originally prepared for the Deaf and Dumb, will be found to be equally adapted to the instruction of other children in families, infant schools, common schools, and Sunday schools” (2).

Grigely’s mock-serious pamphlet is indeed instructional, but to ends entirely different from the originals. Like Walter Benjamin’s Arcades project, Grigely’s pamphlet takes historical objects (books and pamphlets) and rubs them the wrong way, exposing racialist and ableist agendas in works with missionary intentions. Several pages are taken from primers in oralist

education, including guides for pronunciation and proper elocution. Another text, apparently from an eugenics treatise, warns against the dangers of deat/hearing intermarriage: “While there is still some doubt as to how large a part heredity plays in deafness, the indications of its influence are clear enough to make a person with a family history of deafness take all

possible care to avoid conditions that favor hearing impairment” (24). Many pages offer consoling accounts of deaf people who have been “converted” or “brought over” to the hearing world through oral exercise. Other

accounts suggest (wrongly) that deafness coincides with dumbness or 230 THE POLITICAL TEXT

muteness and is therefore a sign of insanity or feeble-mindedness. Perhaps the most telling page is drawn from Rousseau, who defines, in brief, the linguistic basis for many subsequent attacks on manual signing: “Still, the speech of beavers and ants is apparently by gesture; 1.e., it is only visual. If so, such languages are natural, not acquired. The animals that speak them possess them a-borning: they all have them, and they are everywhere the same. They are entirely unchanging and make not the slightest progress. Conventional language is characteristic of man alone. That is why man makes progress .. . and animals do not” (17). A last example testifies to the economic marginalization of the deaf by showing plausible trades that they have entered at various “institutions for the deaf and dumb”: cabinetmaking, shoemaking, bookbinding, gardening, and printing. In most cases, the page ends midsentence, leaving the fuller context empty. Although Deaf and Dumb: A Tale is technically a work of book art, it should be included in Grigely’s art installations as a subtle interrogation of the links between textuality and marginalization, what he in his critical work calls “textual eugenics.” It may seem that in describing Joseph Grigely’s textual art I have swerved rather far from my initial concerns with Deaf performance. Aaron Williamson may eschew both English and ASL, but there is little doubt that he is “performing” at some level. Grigely’s rather quiet installations hardly invite the scrutiny of gesture and orality that is the hallmark of traditional performance artists, but they allow us to return to my use of Henry Louis Gates’s idea of “signifyin(g)” as a vernacular act that creates meaning by gesturing at certain received traditions and canons of meaning making. For Grigely to create a textual space based on truncated conversations is to comment on a broken relationship with hearing culture while making art out of that brokenness. By enlisting the hearing viewer in the difficulty of that conversation, Grigely may point to historical fissures that have kept the d/Deaf individual outside, as it were, the gallery and museum—and outside the epistemological discourse of art as a specific kind of knowledge. As Grigely’s art or Aaron Williamson's Hearing Things makes evident, alienation from the text—and textuality—is literal: words appear on the ground or museum wall like exotic flora and fauna in some new, cybernetic Eden. Williamson may step on them, point at them, and give them meaning, but he is removed from their production. His nonsemantic roaring, like that of Sarah in Children of a Lesser God, is a speech act that challenges the “ordinariness” of ordinary language, making strange not only sounds HEARING THINGS 231

but the discursive arena in which speech “makes sense.” Similarly Flying Words, by treating the sign as a process of community building, reinforces

the collective qualities of meaning production on a global scale. Peter Cook’s and Kenny Lerner’s complex use of sound and sign, far from uniting the two in a gesture of multicultural unity, illustrates the continuing divide between speech-based and Deaf pedagogies. Their metatextual references to both hearing and Deaf audiences challenge the idea that ASL is an invented or iconic language, ancillary to English. Rather, in their hands, it becomes a rich, polyvalent structure, capable of containing the container. The “scandal of speech” in Deaf performance is not that it appears in concert with signing but that its use calls into question the self-evident nature of speech-based communicational models. At the very minimum, such performers make think-hearing a phrase that once seen can never be heard the same way twice.

NOTES 1. On the DPN protests, see Brueggemann (1999, 151-200), Christiansen and Barnartt (1995), and Lane (1995).

2. A good introduction to the situation of children of deaf parents can be found in Lennard Davis's memoir My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood with Deafness (2000). See also his Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body (1995).

3. Brenda Brueggemann has provided an excellent reading of this performance, as she has of many other ASL poets. I am indebted to her readings of both performances, as well as to videotapes that she and Kenny Lerner lent to me. In the absence of commercially available tapes by Deaf performers, the student of sign literature must rely on a limited set of videos, circulated in an ad hoc manner among friends and colleagues. While this limits the number of performances available for commentary, it points to the limits of video documentation and to the site-specific nature of such performances. The important interactive character of Deaf performance can hardly be rendered in a video. 4. In several of his performances, Williamson utilizes musicians and dancers. In a recent collaboration, Williamson worked with the drummer Craig Astill in what he describes as “a kind of Beckettian reduction of my capacity to hear or sense music. Craig played a frame drum directly into the floor (we insisted on hollow wooden stages only) and I picked up a barefoot vibrational signal from varying distances from the drum, thus stimulating degrees of animation in the improvised performance” (pers. comm., Jan. 18, 2000). 5. Williamson has said that the inspiration for this image came less from an attempt to represent the burden of hearing than from an attempt to impede routinized movement. And to some extent, all of his work involves the imposition of limits to normalized action, constructing a “law of diminishing referentiality” that he shares with a wide range of contemporary performers (class lecture at University of California, San Diego, March 3, 2000).

232 THE POLITICAL TEXT

6. Class lecture at University of California, San Diego, March 3, 2000. 7. Although Derrida does not refer to deaf persons in his various critiques of phonocentrism, he might well consider a population that relies on nonphonetic means to signify and that bases its meaning production on visual rather than audible information. Derrida’s “phonocentrism” is usually equated with speech, but Williamson foregrounds “voice” as a multifaceted producer of meaning, not limited to the production of strictly linguistic signs. For further discussion of deafness and Derrida, see Bauman (1997). 8. His book Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism (1995) discusses the transformations of cultural texts through various processes of writing, editing, and publishing. Although deafness is not his subject, Grigely does provide a theoretical justification for his

creation of installations based on conversation slips and ephemeral notes exchanged between himself and interlocutors. The premise of the book is that “the uniqueness of the unique art object or literary text is constantly undergoing continuous and discontinuous transience as it ages, is altered by editors and conservators, and is resituated or reterritorialized in different publications and exhibition spaces” (1). Translated into Grigely’s art installations, such “reterritorialization” would involve the transformation of public spaces where his “conversations with the hearing” take place (bars, cafes, parks) into the art gallery. It would equally involve the ways his art destroys the aura of the unique artwork by its deployment of actual conversations and communications between the deaf and the hearing. 9. This is very much the theme of Grigely’s 1998 installation Barbicon Conversations, in which his conversation slips appear in various public spaces of London’s vast Barbicon Centre. Examples can be found on advertising kiosks, information pamphlets, and docent sheets as well as in the restrooms, bars, and lobbies of the building. Thus Grigely is able to refer to the conversational focus of his work in those spaces where such conversations actually occur.

REFERENCES Bauman, H-Dirksen L. 1997. “Toward a Poetics of Vision, Space, and the Body: Sign Language and Literary Theory.” In The Disability Studies Reader, ed. Lennard J. Davis, 315—31. New York: Routledge.

Baynton, Douglas C. 1996. Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brueggemann, Brenda Jo. 1999. Lend Me Your Ear: Rhetorical Constructions of Deafness. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Children of a Lesser God. 1986. Dir. Randa Haines. With William Hurt and Marlee Matlin. Christiansen, John B., and Sharon N. Barnartt. 1995. Deaf President Now! The 1988 Revolution at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Davis, Lennard. 1995. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body. London: Verso.

——. 2000. My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood with Deafness. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Foucault, Michel. 1988. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

HEARING THINGS 233

Gates, Henry Louis. 1988. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press. Grigely, Joseph. 1994. Deafand Dumb: A Tale. New York: White Columns. ——. 1995. Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lane, Harlan. 1995. The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community. New York: Random House. Medoff, Mark. 1980. Children of a Lesser God. Clifton, NJ: James T. White. Padden, Carol, and Tom Humphries. 1988. Deafin America: Voices from a Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rubinstein, Raphael. 1996. “Visual Voices.” Review of Sean Landers, Kenneth Goldsmith, and Joseph Grigely. Art in America, April, 100-133. Williamson, Aaron. 1996. Review of “Joseph Grigely.” Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, March 16—April 20. Art Monthly, May, 35-36. ——. 1999. “Hearing Things.” Animated, Spring, 17-18. Wrigley, Owen. 1996. The Politics of Deafness. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

234. THE PORITICAL TERT

AFTERWORD CAROL A. PADDEN

This is a remarkable collection of essays about American Sign Language (ASL) literature, made more so by the fact that the history of this kind of analysis is so recent. As the authors have detailed so well in this volume, there are many reasons to group poetry, storytelling, and other kinds of signed performance together as a body of literature; they share a certain aesthetic of celebration of the signed form, and collectively they touch on many of the same themes. The transition to what I call self-conscious sign language performance was rapid. When the National Theatre of the Deaf gave its first performance in 1967, showcasing some of the country’s best Deaf actors, their program featured not original but translated poetry. Audree Norton translated, with long and lithe arms, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's “How Do I Love Thee?” (“Let me count the ways . . .”), as Joe Velez “vogued” his way through Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” Bernard Bragg, arguably the most recognizable of Deaf actors at the time, performed the feline “Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright” (by William Blake). The performers were willing and able but perhaps not yet ready to present on a national stage completely original forms of signed poetry and performance. As Cynthia Peters explains, it was several seasons later (1971-72) before they offered up an original performance, the outstanding My Third Eye. It was vaudevillelike: a collection of skits, demonstrations, a short choreographed sequence, and yes, poetry, linked by sharp humor and a theme of resistance—against the oppression of oral training and denial of sign language that was so much a part of many of the actors’ experiences, against demanding family members and teachers asking what was humanly unrea235

sonable, and against an American society that had waited too long before being willing to watch Deaf actors perform on their stages. It would be foolish to claim that ASL poetry and performance began at this moment because, as Ben Bahan and the editors have argued in this volume, elements of modern ASL poetry can be traced to the earlier kinds of performances in the community. Face to face, and before audiences in all types of venues, Deaf people have been performing imaginatively and with feeling. Predecessors of today’s poems and stories, from lyrical signing to compelling narratives, can be found in filmed records as well as in per-

formances passed down from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What, then, began with the current generation of ASL poets and performers? What has this particular type of poetry discovered? The naming of the language as American Sign Language had a great deal to do with the beginnings of ASL poetry. The language of my deaf father’s generation was simply “the sign language,” but in mine we gave it a name. Once named, the language took on a different position in the community; it became itself an object to behold. Deaf poets and performers became self-conscious, internal, and deliberative and opened themselves to critical study. Clayton Valli began to design poetry that explored the capacity of the handshape and the movement of signs. Dorothy Miles experimented with poetry that would match signs with written English words, in which the two languages would influence each other. Ella Lentz took an experience almost universal to children, that of watching the visual music of telephone wires dipping and swaying while riding in a car, and added the rigorous cadence of number signs to create “Eye Music.” Patrick Graybill captured the conflict of longing and loneliness of the deaf child in his haiku about the long drive back to his deaf school in Kansas. The theme was ageold, but it came together with structure in a new aesthetic of sign literature. Signed narratives took off in new directions too. Sam Supalla brought late-twentieth-century cinematic technique to signed stories. Ben Bahan wove allegory and contemporary imagery into taut narratives. Gilbert East-

man composed an epic poetic narrative in honor of the Deaf President Now movement, stringing together familiar and evocative images from Deaf life. The National Theatre of the Deaf continued to stage more orig-

inal pieces, not vaudeville but fully formed plays. Don Bangs, Shanny

Mow, and Willy Conley mounted original productions and in each explored themes of everyday Deaf lives, from problems with hearing inlaws to tragic deaf education schemes. 236 AFTERWORD

At some risk of overgeneralizing, I will offer what I believe are some important characteristics of this new impulse of ASL poetry and performance. It has strong narrative content. Cynthia Peters describes indigenous Deaf American theater as remaining “close to the everyday lives of its viewers.” ASL poetry is the same. The stories the performers tell are of resistance, oppression, and deeply felt occupation by others. Whether the piece is Sam Supalla’ss “Eyeth” or Eugene Bergman and Bernard Bragg’s “Tales from a Clubroom” or Ben Bahan’s “Bird of a Different Feather,” the Other

is present, unrelenting, and uncomprehending. Gilbert Eastman’s epic poem “Gallaudet Protest” links images of resistance with emblems of nature: as surely as we know that stars appear in the night, a protest will begin. Such pieces tell stories that are personal and familiar to deaf people. Michael Davidson (in chapter 11 of this volume) describes the project of

ASL poetry as essentially a nationalist project because it insists on the uniqueness of the signing poet as someone unlike an English-speaking poet. Furthermore, he observes that ASL poetry is suspicious of “phonocentric models of literature.” ASL poetry celebrates the potential of the sign, how lyrical forms can be made out of handshapes and movements. In this sense, ASL poetry not only shows but proclaims a different order, one in which speech and hearing are contested as the only way to organize lives. These themes have been present for a long time in American deaf life—one of the most eloquent calls to resistance was George Veditz’s 1913 speech

“The Preservation of the Sign Language.” As Chris Krentz explains in chapter 3, what marks modern ASL poetry is how it reiterates these themes and imbues them with self-conscious poetic structure. Theme and struc-

ture become married; the structure of the poem or narrative is itself an emblem of a new order.

Because he sees the themes of resistance and oppression in ASL poetry as akin to those of the colonial experience as told elsewhere in the world, Michael Davidson proposes that “[a] postcolonial regime is very much under way, and performance is one of its key venues.” He is suggesting that we may find useful many nationalist and postcolonial literature projects

from around the world, from the Philippines to India and Madagascar, where novel forms of language and performance have risen out of histories of colonial occupation. I would agree. A colleague of mine, Vicente Rafael, has written about the ascendancy of “Taglish,” a blending of Tagalog, a Filipino indigenous language, with English for use in popular literature and performance in the Philippines. The blended language reflects the coming AFTERWORD 247

together of the Philippines’ pre- and postcolonial history, enacted in jokes and cartoons reflecting on the modern problems of the Filipinos.! The unique combination of theme and structure that defines ASL performance can be seen in the poetry and performance of “experimental” sign poets such as Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner. At the start of the performance of their poem “e = mc?” they warn the audience that the piece

they are about to perform actually “HAS NO MEANING!” Smiling at their audacity, they specifically tell the audience, “DO NOT TRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS POEM!” The poem is a cleverly lyrical piece combining handshapes and movements that suggest meaning but soon become

nonsensical. At the end, the audience cheers at the performance; even though the poem is not a canonical poem with stanzas and a theme it still qualifies as a sign poem because it is so structurally attentive to movement

and handshape. The poem's theme is that ASL structure by itself can be lyrical and pleasing. We should also understand that not only poets but their audiences as well have become analytical. Cook and Lerner are performing to well-informed audiences who fully understand their tongue-incheek commentary on their own performance. Yet Cook and Lerner also perform poetry that tells of resistance, the best known of which is their “T Am Ordered Now to Talk,” which draws on Cook’s memories of his oral education as oppressive. Even when they are playful, Cook and Lerner’s poems are content-full. Another way to understand ASL poetry is to view the work of deaf poets working outside ASL, such as Aaron Williamson, a British performance artist who grew up deaf and learned British Sign Language later in life as an adult. As Michael Davidson explains about Williamson's performances,

they are whole-body pieces centered on the omnipresence of sound and speech. In one of his more powerful pieces, he carries a heavy plaster model of an ear on his back and portrays deaf people’s near-universal experience

of confronting again and again the dominance of sound and speaking in every aspect of life. While Williamson celebrates gesture and the visuality of the hands and the body, he does not locate sign language front and center in his acts of resistance. Without sign poetics, he is free to explore the lived world of deaf people—how hands are used to indicate when they are used together with speech, how meaning can be glimpsed with snatches of lipreading and gestures by others. In this sense, it is perhaps deaf poetry.

The burden of comprehending others rests on the deaf person, and Williamson enacts this as he carries the heavy plaster ear around on stage. 238 AFTERWORD

In contrast, an American work that rails against the omnipresence of the ear, Sam Supalla’s “Eyeth,” represents the ear not as a plaster object but as a word and a sign (“Ear-th”) built into the structure of the signed narrative. Whereas Williamson uses performance to signify, ASL poets and story-

tellers use the signs themselves to signify. For this reason, translation is always an issue with ASL literature—the very thing that makes it different also makes it difficult to understand. Whereas Williamson’s performance can be understood by watching it, Supalla’s cannot without translation. This is why I think postcolonial and nationalist analyses have good potential for understanding ASL literature. ASL literature stands behind the veil of language and is thoroughly steeped in the history of the community. What comes next, after the self-conscious sign poetry of the late twentieth century? Already there is a new generation of sign performers that blend hip-hop and other urban styles into their signing. Whereas Sam Supalla is careful to articulate his signs as he uses film technique in the “Wildest Whiskey of the West,” David Rivera purposely blurs his handshapes and cuts short his movements, as if rejecting the precision of “mainstream” sign poetry. He uses television shot structure in his performances as well. His slow-motion piece of a football game mimics the multiple shot

angles of television sports shows; the same arm that throws the football appears from several different points of view. His themes are gritty, reflect-

ing his urban experience. His hands form handshapes for signs, but the handshapes are also the street gestures of urban youth. In young ASL poets, we are seeing a movement from a romantically conceived “pure” poetry to a “hip” street poetry. We are also seeing the internationalization of sign poetry. Italy’s sign poetry has seen tremendous growth in the last twenty years. The poetry of the Deaf Italian brother and sister Rosaria and Giuseppe Giuranna uses the closeness of the sibling relationship as a structure for performing stanzas. They alternate lines and even parts of lines in a duet performance that is almost musical. Their lines flow, then build up to a crescendo as the frame

of their poetry together becomes larger than each of them individually. Japanese sign narrators use number signs to tell a story, as do Americans, but

the numbers run backwards, as in one about a fisherman at the end of the day watching a sunset. The poem begins with the number nine and counts down to zero: the fisherman puts down his fishing pole, and when the last sign is reached a zero stands in for a round sun setting. Imagine how many more ways there are of doing sign poetry once we move to the world stage. AFTERWORD 239

The first world celebration of Deaf communities at Deaf Way 1989 brought together an astonishing array of stage performances, sign poetries, music, dance, and visual art. Clearly inspired by it, Deaf Way 2002 featured performances not only from Europe but also from Asia, South America, and Africa. As Deaf people themselves migrate, from Asia to America, from eastern Europe to the Middle East, from Africa to Europe and America, their communities’ sign performances travel with them. Already there has been a great deal of borrowing and cross-fertilization of literatures in different sign languages. Perhaps the next volume of ASL literature will not be just about ASL poetry and performance but will be expanded to include

world sign literature and will acknowledge the influence of Deaf artists from around the world.

NOTE 1. Vicente L. Rafael, White Love and Other Events in Filipino History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).

240 AFTERWORD

APPENDIX A

Time Line of ASL

Literature Development

It would be impossible to compile an exhaustive time line of the development of ASL literature. Much of the growth of ASL literature has occurred in living rooms, kitchens, dorms, and other vernacular spaces. We have merely attempted to present some of the more public events so that readers may have the broad outlines of the development of ASL literature. We thank Joseph Castronovo, Bernard Bragg, and Ella Mae Lentz for their careful reading and editing of the time line.

1813-17: THOMAS HOPKINS GALLAUDET BEGINS AMERICAN DEAF EDUCATION

- 1813-16—While studying to be a minister in Connecticut, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet became involved in educating Alice Cogswell, a deaf daughter of his neighbor Mason Cogswell. Gallaudet, sponsored by Cogswell, then traveled to Europe to learn about methods of deaf education. He first went to England but was not well received; the British educators who endorsed oralism were reluctant to share their methods. Fortunately, a French educator of deaf children, the Abbé Sicard, and deaf teachers Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc, held a public exhibition of their methods of deaf education in London. Clerc and Sicard invited Gallaudet to the deaf school in Paris, which endorsed the manual method. Through observing Sicard and Clerc’s work, Gallaudet became committed to the manual method of deaf education and invited Clerc to accompany him to America to found the first school for the deaf. - 1817—Gallaudet and Clerc founded the first American deaf school, at first called the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons and later known as the American School for the Deaf (ASD). The school became the catalyst for the development of a cohesive American Deaf community. For the first time, deaf people from all over the country were brought together, sign was viewed as a legitimate form of communication, and a sign language common to many Deaf

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Americans evolved. ASL developed from the blending of French Sign Language, signs from the signing community in Martha’s Vineyard, and various home sign languages brought by students to the school. The language was referred to as “the sign language” and “the natural language of signs”; the name American Sign Language did not come into use until later in the twentieth century. (For a thorough analysis of development and attitudes toward sign language, see Baynton 1997.)

1817-80: THE “GOLDEN AGE” OF AMERICAN DEAF EDUCATION This time period has been referred to as the “golden age,”! since sign language was encouraged in the classroom, reflecting the manual method of deaf education. Deaf schools using the manual method flourished, as teachers (both Deaf and hearing) and graduates of the residential schools spread ASL to other parts of the country. Use of sign language in the classroom encouraged Deaf adults to become teachers and administrators. At this time linguistics books, in addition to the residential schools, reflected a more bilingual attitude. For example, William Dwight Whitney’s 1875 classic The Life and Growth of Language: An Outline of Linguistic Science shows a more balanced view of sign language than those presented in later linguistics books. Whitney is very insistent that speech does not equal thought and that complex mental processes can be conveyed in gestures, particularly those used in sign language.

- 1864—The federally funded National Deaf-Mute College in Washington, D.C. (now Gallaudet University) was founded, the first (and, to this day, the only) liberal arts postsecondary institution for Deaf people in the world. - Mid- to late 18300s—“Prevideotape Period of ASL Literature.” Creative uses of ASL began to be explored; the “oral” tradition of ASL became evident in the form of poems, anecdotes, and stories. At this time, however, there was no way to preserve or share this artistry with a wider hearing audience unless the hearing person signed. These artistic forms survived by being passed down manually through successive generations, and they continue to thrive in the Deaf community similarly to the oral traditions of spoken-written languages. In this volume, Ben Bahan (chapter 2) and Christopher Krentz (chapter 3) discuss these oral traditional forms and their relevance to Deaf culture and to notions of literacy. It is important to recognize here that at this time the concept of deaf /’terature could be defined only as deaf people writing and publishing in English (see Panara, Denis, and McFarlane 1960; Batson and Bergman 1987; Gannon 1987). While creative forms of sign language thrived, they could not possibly have been equated with literature because ASL was not considered a “real” language; its utility in the classroom and Deaf community was certainly acknowledged, but primarily in relation to its communication efficacy and assistance in teaching English.

1880-1957: THE “DARK AGE” OF DEAF EDUCATION

- Late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries—Oralism/Manualism Debate. For many years deaf educators around the world were engaged in a conflict over the

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merits of the oral versus manual methods of teaching. In the United States, Edward Miner Gallaudet advocated the manual method as a superior means to achieve fluency in both sign and reading/writing. Alexander Graham Bell argued just as vehemently for oralism, claiming that sign language alienated deaf people from the rest of society and that full integration required the ability to speak and lip-read. - 1880—Milan Congress. The advocates of oralism organized the 1880 meeting of the International Conference of Teachers of the Deaf, in Milan, where the members voted to convert all deaf education to oralism, aborting the achievements of signbased education in Europe. The effects of the Milan Congress eventually spread to America. - 1880-1960s—As oralism became endorsed across the United States, deaf schools changed drastically. Deaf teachers and administrators were fired, and gradually deaf children knew only hearing teachers who spent day after day drilling them in speech. ASL was forbidden in the classroom but remained strong in the Deaf community.

- Early 1900s—Deaf adults continued to publish written prose and poetry, and a strong deaf presence existed in the silent film world. Noteworthy examples include Albert Ballin, a painter, writer, and actor who published a book in 1930 entitled The Deaf-Mute Howls; Lon Chaney, whose success as a silent film actor has often been attributed partially to having parents who were deaf; and the Deaf actor Granville Redmond, who gained recognition in many of Charlie Chaplin’s films.” See Carol Robinson's chapter in this volume (chapter 10) for more on Redmond and silent film.

- 1913-20—National Association of the Deaf (NAD) ASL Film Project. With the continuing use of oralism in deaf schools, the NAD (founded in 1880) was concerned that the creative use of sign language would be lost. Over a period of seven years the NAD filmed various Deaf individuals making presentations in sign language. Among these were George Veditz, who, in 1913, presented an example of ASL oratory entitled “Preservation of the Sign Language,” and John Hotchkiss, who presented “Memories of Old Hartford,” a personal narrative about his experiences at the Hartford School (both in The Preservation of American Sign Language 1997).° These films are the first published recording of ASL literature, the only visual record of ASL used in the early part of the twentieth century. In this volume, chapter 3, by Christopher Krentz, explores in greater depth the significance of this filming, arguing that the impact of film technology (and later videotape) on ASL literacy parallels the impact of the printing press on spoken-written language literacy. - 1920s to 1950s—Charles Krauel videotaped various Deaf events, literary and otherwise. Some of these films appear in this volume; they can also be found in Ted Supalla’s video Charles Krauel: Portrait of a Deaf Filmmaker (1994). - 1930s—40s—Ernest Marshall was a renowned storyteller, celebrating the ASL oral tradition with Deaf audiences for over seventy years. Marshall came from a strong ASL/Deaf heritage, with both Deaf parents and grandparents. See Ben Bahan and Chris Krentz (chapters 2 and 3 of this volume) for more on Marshall.

- 1957—William C. Stokoe began linguistic research on ASL. With his pioneering work in the study of ASL, Stokoe was directly responsible for initiating a new era in Deaf education and, as discussed in chapter 1 of this volume, laying the groundwork

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for the paradigm shift in conceptions of language and literature. In the 1950s Stokoe, a hearing professor of English, took a position in the English department at Gallaudet College to teach Chaucer. After observing sign language in use by students and Deaf faculty across the campus, he became interested in discovering its linguistic properties. In 1957 the American Council of Learned Societies awarded Stokoe a grant to study ASL, the first research of its kind in the United States.

19 60—PRESENT: VIDEO PERIOD OF ASL LITERATURE

- 1960—Stokoe published his first linguistic study of ASL, Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf. This book created a stir in the Deaf community because, while Deaf people had always used sign language among themselves, sign was always considered and accepted as inferior to English. Stokoe’s work changed this perception and became a catalyst for linguistic research, research into creative and folkloric uses of ASL, the use of videotape for research, and the beginning of complex literary translations from English to ASL. One of the most well-known literary translations is Eric Malzkuhn’s version of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.”

- 1966—Bernard Bragg coined the term s/gn-mime to reflect the differences between the artistic language used in performance and the everyday language of the Deaf community. At the Professional Theatre School of the National Theatre of the Deaf (see below), Bragg used sign-mime to teach translation of poetry and drama and to work with free expression in ASL.

- 1967—Founding of the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD). NTD began with eight members (Eastman 1980, 24), including Gilbert Eastman, Bernard Bragg, and Lou Fant, with the dual purpose of exposing hearing people to the beauty and power of sign language in performance and providing versatile performance opportunities for Deaf individuals. Early productions consisted of translations of English plays, and, with the exception of a few original ASL pieces, the company remains focused on sign translation to this day. These translations of English literary works exposed Deaf artists and audiences to the creative and artistic possibilities of ASL, paving the way for original ASL texts. Through his work with NTD, Bernard Bragg developed the concept of visual vernacular (VV), a distinguishing feature of ASL that involves the use of filmlike cuts, such as shifting between characters and cutting to show different perspectives of a scene or action. Between 1967 and 1977, Bernard Brage’s home was a frequent gathering place for artists like Ella Mae Lentz, Joseph Castronovo, and Lou Fant to share their work on an informal level and to experiment with the creative possibilities of sign language. Between 1974 and 1976, Lentz and Castronovo in particular explored elements of signed poetry, leading to the development of a poem entitled “Shiva.”

- 1967—Gilbert Eastman, a founding member of NTD, offered a course in sign translation for the theater at Gallaudet College, the first course of its kind in the United States (Eastman 1980, 24). The increasing repertoire of NTD and the Gallaudet course demonstrate a growing awareness of the artistry of ASL and its ability to come alive on stage.

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- 1971I—NTD’s production of My Third Eye. This play, a collection of personal and group narratives recounting aspects of Deaf culture, was the first original work produced by NTD. The performers created the piece together in ASL, and the hearing actors spoke English translations from ASL, demonstrating the effectiveness of a reverse translation process. - 1972—With William Stokoe as editor, Sign Language Studies was established, the first national journal to focus solely on linguistic, sociological, and cultural research on sign.

- 1973—First performance of Sign Me Alice, a play created by Gilbert Eastman (published 1974). This play marks a major turning point in the development of ASL literature. While loosely based on Shaw’s Pygmation, Sign Me Alice was created completely in ASL and was the first play to focus on attitudes toward ASL. It explored the experience of being Deaf in a hearing world and being free to choose ASL over English (Eastman 1974, 28-29). Upon its publication, Eastman and William Stokoe created a written script using English glosses of the ASL signs. The published form was thus a printed English transcription of ASL, the first print publication to attempt to come as close as possible to the original ASL. - 1974—A creative writing course taught by John Canney at Gallaudet University explored the relationship between ASL and poetry. Ella Mae Lentz’s work, which began with illustrating ASL on paper and then moved away from paper to the actual presentation of ASL poetry, was influenced by this class. - 1976—Dorothy Miles’s film and book Gestures. Miles, a Welsh woman who studied at Gallaudet, became known as one of the first Deaf poets to create works in sign language. Gestures is one of the first recorded examples of original, single-authored sign language poetry. Miles’s play A Play of Our Own was produced in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1975. - 1978—*Poetry in the Palm of Your Hand” Project, South Bend, Indiana. Funded by the Indiana Committee for the Humanities, this was a year-long project designed to promote ASL as a literary language. Events included a public signed poetry performance and discussion, four workshops, roundtable discussions, and a conference sponsored by Indiana University at South Bend that featured the poet/performers Lou Fant and Ella Mae Lentz and presentations by Lou Fant and John Canney— the first ASL poetry conference in the United States. - 1979—Publication of The Signs of Language by Edward Klima and Ursula Bellugi. This book was groundbreaking in its comprehensive and in-depth linguistic analysis of ASL. It includes what may be the first writing devoted solely to the poetics of ASL.

- 1979—Founding of Sign Media, Inc., the first sign language video publishing company in the United States not affiliated with a postsecondary institution. Other video and CD-ROM publishers founded to publish sign language materials include Gallaudet University Press, DawnSignPress, SignEnhancers, and D.E.A.F. Media, Inc.

- 1980—Sign Media published the videotape American Sign Language: Tales from the Green Books, in which a variety of Deaf performers signed classic stories, personal anecdotes, and poems representing Deaf folklore. These works were originally

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placed at the end of a series of ASL instructional videos called The Green Books, but they were so popular among ASL instructors that the works were compiled in their own video. This video presents an example of both the affirmation of Deaf culture and the new technological means to preserve creative and traditional ASL forms. - 1980—First performance of Tales from a Clubroom, by Bernard Bragg and Eugene Bergman (published 1981). This play offered more insights into Deaf culture, taking place in a Deaf club, the center of social activities in many Deaf communities. Though it was written in English, the authors attempted to reflect the rhythm of ASL. They kept the English as neutral and idiom-free as possible to facilitate ease of translation by Deaf theater companies.

- 1984—First ASL poetry course at Gallaudet College. Taught by Clayton Valli, a Deaf poet and professor of linguistics, and Trent Batson, a hearing professor of English, this course was the first time literary analysis, as opposed to linguistic analysis, had been used to study ASL creative forms in the classroom. Valli and Batson took a traditional formalist approach, using written poetic form as a foundation for analyzing ASL poetry. Course content involved the study of videotaped samples of Valli and Lentz’s ASL poetry, demonstrating the textual quality of the videotaped signing body.

- 1984—Poetry Workshop at National Technical Institute for the Deaf, sponsored by Jim Cohn. The Deaf poet Robert Panara and the hearing poet Allen Ginsberg led this workshop, which explored shared qualities of form and style in modern American written poetry and ASL poetry, focusing particularly on the power and centrality of the image in both poetic traditions. Present were the poets Patrick Graybill, Debbie Rennie, Peter Cook, and Kenny Lerner. A memorable moment occurred when Graybill spontaneously signed a translation of Ginsberg’s poem “Hydrogen Jukebox,” cementing the relationship between the two poetic traditions in their exploration of the image. - 1984—First special session on ASL literature at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, organized by Joseph Grigely. - 1986—“Literature by Deaf Iowans: Linguistic Form and Social Function,” PhD dissertation by Jane Frances Kelleher, University of Iowa. - 1986—Creation of the Flying Words Project (FWP), an ASL performance duo. The Deaf poet Peter Cook and the hearing poet Kenny Lerner developed FWP as a vehicle for exploring the creative possibilities of ASL and as a way to reach both Deaf and hearing audiences through sign language. Beginning in Rochester, New York, Cook and Lerner soon began entertaining and educating audiences across the United States. Their early work frequently involved teaching hearing children to be more expressive with their bodies, beginning first with gesture. Later they led workshops and performed for Deaf audiences. A key development in their work came in 1987, when Jerome Rothenberg invited FWP to perform at a performance poetry conference held at SUNY Binghamton. - 1986—Publication of Jim Cohn’s “The New Deaf Poetics” in Sign Language Studies. With the 1984 National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) poetry workshop as the foundation for his analysis, Cohn argued that ASL literature represents the emergence of a new and different poetics—one that is most closely related to the work of hearing image poets like Ginsberg.

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- 1987—National Deaf Poetry Conference at NTID. Encouraged by the ideas generated at the 1984 poetry workshop led by Panara and Ginsberg, Jim Cohn hosted a conference devoted solely to ASL poetry. Five poets were featured: Peter Cook, Patrick Graybill, Ella Mae Lentz, Debbie Rennie, and Clayton Valli—the first formal gathering of individuals who identified themselves as ASL poets. The artists performed their works and participated in panel discussions investigating the creative process.

- 1987—Presentation of “The Nature of the Line in ASL Poetry,” by Clayton Valli, at the Fourth International Symposium on Sign Language Research; published in 1990. This article made a groundbreaking attempt to identify qualities of ASL poetry that parallel the poetic line of written poetry. - 1987—“A Study of American Deaf Folklore,” PhD dissertation by Susan D. Rutherford, University of California, Berkeley. This dissertation focuses on ASL folklore in the Deaf community and how cultural values and literary uses of ASL are passed from one Deaf person to another via folkloric techniques such as ABC stories and number stories. - 1988—“Deaf President Now” Movement. When the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees appointed a hearing person to the position of president—passing up two qualified Deaf candidates—the Gallaudet student body responded by shutting down the university, contacting the media, and eventually forcing the board to appoint a Deaf president, the first in Gallaudet’s history. The event marked a sense of coming of age for the American Deaf community. In this volume, Kristen Harmon’s chapter (chapter 9) examines the epic narrative created by Gilbert Eastman about the event. - 1988—Publication of “Signers of Tales,” by Nancy Frishberg. This article, in Sign Language Studies, was one of the first to explore ASL poetry and narrative from the perspective of the oral tradition of spoken languages. - 1989—Deaf Way Congress, Gallaudet University. This international gathering highlighted aspects of global Deaf culture and featured several ASL poets and storytellers. It was here that the sign for “ASL poetry” first appeared. (See chapter 1 for a description of this development.) After this conference, a book entitled The Deaf Way (Erting et al. 1994) was published that included articles based on all presentations. - 1989—The first national Deaf studies conference was held at Gallaudet University. This conference established Deaf studies as a distinct academic field. - 1989—W. J. T. Mitchell published “Gesture, Sign, and Play: ASL Poetry and the Deaf Community” in the MLA Newsletter. This was one of the earliest recognitions that ASL poetry had wide-ranging implications for literary studies in general. - 1990—Poetry in Motion videotapes published (Graybill 1990; Rennie 1990; Valli 1990b). Sign Media’s publishing of this three-videotape volume represents another major turning point in the ASL literary movement because it was the first publication of ASL works in their original form, not glosses or English translations. Featuring the texts of Debbie Rennie, Patrick Graybill, and Clayton Valli, the videotapes are unique because they contain no English translations, either voiced or written. They were the first original ASL poems to be preserved on video for the Deaf com-

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munity, creating the foundation for a video library of ASL literature that could stand on its own without influence from, or comparison to, English. - 1991—First National ASL Literature Conference at NTID. This conference featured multiple performances, presentations, and panel discussions exploring key questions concerning how ASL literature is defined, what “counts” as ASL literature, how ASL literature may be analyzed, and how it may be used in deaf education. - 1991—"Poetic Images” performance at the Herberger Theater Center, Phoenix. This performance was produced and directed by Jaine Richards, then coordinator of Deaf Student Services at Arizona State University, and Heidi Rose, then a doctoral student at the university. The performance featured the storyteller Sam Supalla and Peter Cook and included Deaf students performing works by Clayton Valli, Ella Mae Lentz, and Debbie Rennie. The performance is noteworthy because it was the first time original ASL literature was formally performed by individuals other than the author. Rose discusses some of the implications of these performances in chapter 7 of this volume. * 1992—Sam Supalla and Ben Bahan’s American Sign Language Literature Series video-

tape and workbook published. This video/workbook set was designed to help instructors teach ASL literature and literary analysis. Supalla and Bahan each sign a story and then take the viewer-reader through a step-by-step analysis of form, structure, theme, and style. - 1992—“A Critical Methodology for Analyzing American Sign Language Literature,” PhD dissertation by Heidi M. Rose, Arizona State University. Exploring theories of the body deriving from dance and performance art, the dissertation (1) presents a history of ASL literature, distinguishing between pre- and postvideotape texts; (2) identifies key stylistic features of ASL literature, including bodily rhythm and repetition, modification of conventional ASL signs, visual metaphor, and body-as-camera; and (3) analyzes works by Sam Supalla, Clayton Valli, Peter Cook, and Debbie Rennie. - 1993—"The Poetics of American Sign Language Poetry,” PhD dissertation by Clayton Valli, Union Institute Graduate School. The dissertation delineates a formalist theory of ASL poetry, comparing English and ASL poetics. Valli presents a thorough analysis of the multifaceted rhyming potential of ASL poetry. Valli’s work has essentially established the field of ASL poetic analysis. - 1994— The Man behind the Mask: An Interview with Bernard Bragg, a six-volume videotape set published by DawnPictures that contains numerous samples of ASL narrative. - 1995—ASL Poetry: Selected Works of Clayton Valli, a videotape published by Dawn-

Pictures. In this collection, the narrator Lon Kuntze introduces viewers to linguistic techniques embedded in Valli’s poems. This tape also represents the first ASL publication where performers other than the author recite poems. - 1995— The Treasure: Poems by Ella Mae Lentz, a videotape published by In Motion Press. This collection of Lentz’s works explores the role of the camera in making a poem live. Lentz experiments with different camera angles and perspectives, allowing the camera to become part of the text, as opposed to merely recording or preserving the text. Heidi Rose discusses the performative aspects of the video in this volume.

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- 1995—Alec Ormsby published “Poetic Cohesion in American Sign Language: Valli’s ‘Snowflake’ and Coleridge's ‘Frost at Midnight.’” one of the first articles to offer an in-depth comparative poetics of ASL and English. This same year, Ormsby publishes his doctoral dissertation, “The Poetry and Politics of American Sign Language,” from Stanford University.

- 1995—“Fantasies of Deafness, Silence, and Speech,” PhD dissertation by Jennifer L. Nelson, University of California at Berkeley. Starting with a theoretical analysis of the phonocentric tradition in classical literature, Nelson argues that this phonocentric literary tradition defines Deaf people in a way that reflects the verbal bias inherent in speech and written representations of speech. Nelson argues for ASL literature as a counterpoint and valid alternative to this tradition. Nelson's chapter in this volume (chapter 6) on the importance of poststructuralist theory in validating ASL as a form of literature (and a form of “writing”) equal to spoken and written literature is derived from this dissertation.

- 1996—International ASL Literature Conference at NTID. This conference not only featured the work of a more varied array of American Deaf artists than the 1991 conference but in addition exposed audiences to artists from South Africa and Quebec. A shift in the conceptualizations of ASL literature became apparent as artists and critics demonstrated a more flexible and inclusive definition of sign literature. - 1996—Modern Language Association reclassification of ASL. The MLA International Bibliography had traditionally classified sign languages as invented languages akin to Klingon and Esperanto. With the recognition of this error, the 1996 edition reclassified ASL and other sign languages as equivalent to any spoken language. - 1996—At Gallaudet University, Ben Bahan first taught the course “Oral Traditions in the Deaf Community,” which expands on Bahan’s chapter in this volume (chapter 2). - 1997—Publication of Susan Burch’s “Deaf Poets Society: Subverting the Hearing Paradigm” in the online periodical Literature and Medicine. Due to Internet technology, this is the first time that a scholarly publication was able to feature ASL poetry on video. - 1998—“American Sign Language as a Medium for Poetry: A Comparative Poetics of Sign, Speech, and Writing,” PhD dissertation by H-Dirksen L. Bauman, State University of New York, Binghamton. Bauman asserts that ASL poetry offers aesthetic potential in its synthesis of visual, spatial, and kinetic modalities that modernist and postmodernist American poetry has been searching for, especially those poets in the tradition of Ezra Pound. - 1999—Jim Cohn’s Sign Mind published. This text is a collection of essays on sign poetics and other musings on Deaf poetry and performance. - 1999 to 2001—ASL Literature Poetry and Storytelling Series, a performance series offered by the Deaf Studies Department at Gallaudet University. Performers such as Joseph Castronovo, Clayton Valli, Ella Lentz, Bernard Bragg, Sam Supalla, and the Flying Words Project were featured. - 2002—Gallaudet University established a Master of Arts degree in Deaf studies. Curriculum included an integration of cultural studies, critical theory, and ASL literature.

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- 2002—Deat Way II, an extension of the first Deaf Way festival in 1989. Deaf Way I hosted over ten thousand registrants from over one hundred countries. The conference featured presentations on political, educational, social, and artistic aspects of Deaf culture around the world, with a number of presentations focused on sign literature and a wide range of performances of drama, narrative, and poetry. The objective of this conference was to maintain ties within the global Deaf community. - 2003—Slope literary magazine published an online volume focusing on ASL poetry (Rich and Janke 2003). This magazine featured the National ASL Poetry contest, judged by Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner and won by Jeremy Quiroga. This special edition also featured background reading on ASL poetry and Deaf culture. - 2004—Modern Language Association Forum: American Sign Language. This special forum at the MLA featured three panels that dealt with specific aspects of literary expression through ASL. - 2004-5—Deaf Poetry Jam: sponsored by CityLore, Inc., and filmmaker Judy Lieff, Deaf Poetry Jam encouraged and trained Deaf high school students from New York City to perform alongside spoken-word poets from the New York area. In May 2005, Deaf high school poets performed with spoken-word poets at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.

- 2005—Dutch poets Wim Emmerik and Giselle Meyer teamed with filmmakers Anja Heddinga and Leendert Pot to create Motioning, a collection of “film poetry in Dutch Sign Language” (Heddinga and Pot 2005). The highly stylized editing marks a new level in the integration of film language and sign language poetics.

NOTES

1. The terms Golden Age and Dark Ages are often used to refer to these periods and are not new to this time line. 2. See John Schuchman’s Hollywood Speaks (1988) for a history of Deaf actors and filmmakers as well as a treatment of Hollywood’s portrayal of deafness. 3. These films are available on videotape through Sign Media, Inc., in The Preservation of American Sign Language—The Complete Historical Collection (1997).

REFERENCES

American Sign Language: Tales from the Green Books. 1980. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media. Bahan, Ben, and Sam Supalla. 1992. American Sign Language Literature Series. Videocassette and workbook. San Diego: DawnSignPress. Ballin, Albert. 1930. The Deaf-Mute Howls. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Batson, Trenton W., and Eugene Bergman, eds. 1987. Angels and Outcasts: An Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Bauman, H-Dirksen L. 1998. “American Sign Language as a Medium for Poetry: A Comparative Poetics of Sign, Speech, and Writing.” PhD diss., State University of New York, Binghamton.

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Baynton, Douglas C. 1997. Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bragg, Bernard. 1994. The Man behind the Mask: An Interview with Bernard Bragg. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures. Bragg, Bernard, and Eugene Bergman. 1981. Tales from a Clubroom. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press. ——. 1991. Tales from a Clubroom. Videocassette. Washington, DC: Department of Television, Film and Photography, Gallaudet University. Burch, Susan. 1997. “Deaf Poets Society: Subverting the Hearing Paradigm.” Literature and Medicine 16 (Spring): 121-34.

Cohn, Jim. 1986. “The New Deaf Poetics: Visible Poetry.” Sign Language Studies 52 (Fall): 263-77. ——. 1999. Sign Mind: Studies in American Sign Language Poetics. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics. Eastman, Gilbert C. 1974. Sign Me Alice. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press. ——. 1980. “From Student to Professional: A Personal Chronicle of Sign Language.” In Sign Language and the Deaf Community: Essays in Honor of William C. Stokoe, ed. Charlotte Baker and Robbin Battison, 9-32. Silver Springs, MD: National Association of the Deaf.

——. 1983. Sign Me Alice and Sign Me Alice Il. Three videocassettes. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College TV Studio, 1983. Erting, Carol, Robert Johnson, Dorothy Smith, and Bruce Snider, eds. 1994. The Deaf Way: Perspectives from the International Conference on Deaf Culture. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Frishberg, Nancy. 1988. “Signers of Tales: The Case for the Literary Status of an Unwritten Language.” Sign Language Studies 59:149-70. Gannon, Jack. 1981. Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America. Washington, DC: National Association of the Deaf. Graybill, Patrick.1990. Poetry in Motion, Original Works in ASL: Patrick Graybill. Videocas-

sette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media. Hiddinga, Anja, and Lendeert Pot, dirs. 2005. Motioning. DVD. Poetry and performances by Wim Emmerik and Giselle Meyer. Amsterdam: Stichten Geelproduckt, Rubenstein Publishers. Kelleher, Jane Frances. 1986. “Literature by Deaf Iowans: Linguistic Form and Social Function.” PhD diss., University of Iowa. Klima, Edward, and Ursula Bellugi. 1979. The Signs of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lentz, Ella Mae. 1995. The Treasure: Poems by Ella Mae Lentz. Videocassette. Berkeley: In Motion Press.

Miles, Dorothy. 1976. Gestures: Poetry by Dorothy Miles. Book and videocassette. Northridge, CA: Joyce Motion Picture. Mitchell, W. J. T. 1989. “Gesture, Sign, and Play: ASL Poetry and the Deaf Community.” MLA Newsletter, Summer, 13-14.

Nelson, Jennifer L. 1995. “Fantasies of Deafness, Silence, and Speech.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley.

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Ormsby, Alec. 1995a. “Poetic Cohesion in American Sign Language: Valli’s ‘Snowflake’ and Coleridge’s ‘Frost at Midnight.’” Sten Language Studies 88:227—44.

——. 199sb. “The Poetry and Politics of American Sign Language.” PhD diss., Stanford University.

Panara, Robert E, Taras B. Denis, and James H. McFarlane, eds. 1960. The Silent Muse: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry by the Deaf. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College. The Preservation of American Sign Language: The Complete Historical Collection. 1997. Butrtonsville, MD: Sign Media. Rennie, Debbie. 1990. Poetry in Motion, Original Works in ASL: Debbie Rennie. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media. Rich, Rita, and Christopher Janke, eds. 2003. “American Sign Language Poetry Special Edition.” Slope. Retrieved December 24, 2005, from http://slope.org/asl. Rose, Heidi M. 1992. “A Critical Methodology for Analyzing American Sign Language Literature.” PhD diss., Arizona State University. Rutherford, Susan.1987. “A Study of American Deaf Folklore.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley. Schuchman, John S. 1988. Hollywood Speaks: Deafness and the Film Entertainment History, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Stokoe, William C. 1960. Szgn Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok. Supalla, Ted. Charles Krauel: A Profile of a Deaf Filmmaker. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures, 1994. Valli, Clayton. 1990a. “The Nature of the Line in ASL Poetry.” In SLR 87: Papers from the Fourth International Symposium on Sign Language Research, ed. W. H. Edmondson and FE. Karlsson. Hamburg: Signum. ——.1990b. Poetry in Motion, Original Works in ASL: Clayton Valli. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media. ——. 1993. “The Poetics of American Sign Language Poetry.” PhD diss., Union Institute Graduate School. ——. 1995. ASL Poetry: Selected Works of Clayton Valli. Videocassette. San Diego: DawnPictures.

Whitney, William Dwight. 1876. The Life and Growth of Language: An Outline of Linguistic Science. New York: D. Appleton.

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APPENDIX B

ASL Video References

Bahan, Ben, and Sam Supalla. American Sign Language Literature Series. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures, 1992. Bangs, Don. Moving Pictures, Moving Hands: The Story of Ernest Marshall. Videocassette. Studio City, CA: Beyond Sound Productions, 1987. Bragg, Bernard. The Man behind the Mask: An Interview with Bernard Bragg. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures, 1994. Bragg, Bernard, and Eugene Bergman. Tales from a Clubroom. Videocassette. Washington, DC: Department of Television, Film and Photography, Gallaudet University, 1991.

Eastman, Gilbert C. Live at SMI: Gilbert Eastman. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media, 1991.

——. Sign Me Alice and Sign Me Alice I. Three videocassettes. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College TV Studio, 1983. Ennis, B. 1993. Bill Ennis: Live at SMI! Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media. Gallaudet University Distance Education Program. 1997. Telling Tales in ASL: From Literature to Literacy. Videocassette. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University. Graybill, Patrick. Poetry in Motion, Original Works in ASL: Patrick Graybill. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media, 1990. ——.. The World According to Pat: Reflections of Residential School Days. Videocassette. Silver Spring, MD: Sign Media and TJ Publishers, 1986. Lentz, Ella Mae. The Treasure: Poems by Ella Mae Lentz. Videocassette. Berkeley, CA: In Motion Press, 1995.

Lentz, Ella Mae, Ken Mikos, and Cheryl Smith. Signing Treasures: Excerpts from Signing Naturally Videos. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures, 1996. Miles, Dorothy. Gestures: Poetry by Dorothy Miles. Book and videocassette. Northridge, CA: Joyce Motion Pictures, 1976. Miller, Mary Beth. 1992. Live at SMI: Mary Beth Miller. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media. Mocenigo, R., dir. American Culture: The Deaf Perspective. Four videocassettes. San Francisco: San Francisco Public Library.

253

The Preservation of American Sign Language: The Complete Historical Collection. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media, 1997. Rennie, Debbie. Poetry in Motion, Original Works in ASL: Debbie Rennie. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media, 1990. Supalla, C., and D. Supalla. 1992. Short Stories in American Sign Language. Videocassette. Riverside, CA: ASL Vista Project. Supalla, Ted. Charles Krauel: A Profile of a Deaf Filmmaker. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures, 1994. Valli, Clayton. ASL Poetry: Selected Works of Clayton Valli. Hosted by Lon Kuntze. Videocassette. San Diego, CA: DawnPictures, 1995. —_—. Poetry in Motion, Original Works in ASL: Clayton Valli. Videocassette. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media, 1990.

254 APPENDIX B

CONTRIBUTORS

BEN BAHAN isa Professor and MA Program Director in the Department of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University. H-DIRKSEN L. BAUMAN isa Professor in the Department of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University. MICHAEL DAVIDSON isa Professor in the Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego. KRISTEN C.HARMON is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Gallaudet University. CHRISTOPHER B. KRENTZ is an Assistant Professor of English and Director of the American Sign Language Program in the Department of English, University of Virginia.

W.J.T. MITCHELL is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of English and Art History, University of Chicago. JENNIFER L.NELSON is a Professor in the Department of English, Gallaudet University.

CAROL A. PADDEN is a Professor in the Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego. CYNTHIA PETERS is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Gallaudet University.

CAROL L. ROBINSON is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Kent State University, Trumbull.

HEIDI M. ROSE Is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Villanova University.

LIZ WOLTER Isa teacher in the English Department of the Lexington School for the Deaf, New York City.

255

Blank Page

INDEX

Page numbers in italic refer to illustrations or their captions.

ABC stories, 8, 37-38, 40—41, 48n20, 154 Antin, David, 6

Albert, Tommy, 198 Antin, Eleanor, 226

Alphabet, English, 37—41 Anzaldtia, Gloria, 226 American School for the Deaf (ASD), 23, Apollinaire, Guillaume, 102, 103, 104, 105

45n5 Arcos, Carmen de, 198

American Sign Language (ASL): and Aristotle, xxi Chomsky’s theory of language, 122; ASL. See American Sign Language (ASL)

cinematic technique in, 29-31, Astill, Craig, 232n4 62=63;109=105 150=51,: 1535. 1555.156, Audience-performer relations: media’s

183, 201-2; and Derrida’s theory of impact on, 56-57, 59-60, 63-64, 65, signification, 119-28; dialects in, 68; and poetry in sign language, 238; 214n6; dictionary of, 165n8; emer- and speech in Deaf performance, gence of, 8; and English language, 219, 224; and storytelling in sign lan37—Al; 30; 67; 147; 148, 209, 2147, guage, 27-28, 43-45; and theater in 221, 232, 236; and face-to-face tradi- sign language, 84-85, 87-88 tion, 21-22, 32, §1, 52; linguistic sta- Audism, 126, 217, 229 tus of, 3, 109-10, 122, 160; linguistic Authorship, nature of, 171 structure of, 151-53; naming of, 236; Avant-garde poetry, 10-11, IOI print medium used for representing, 22, 46n2, 48n20, 53, 127-28, 145n4; Bacon, Wallace, 146n13 regional variation in, 66, 69n6; stan- Bahan, Ben, 5—6, 8-13, 33, 64, 65, 144, 159,

dardization of, 66. See also Films; 236; 237 Lectures in sign language; Literature Bakhtin, Mikhail, 13, 75, 79, 84-85 in sign language; Poetry in sign lan- Baldwin, Stephen C., 89 guage; Songs in sign language; Story- Ballin, Albert, 198

telling in sign language; Video Bangs, Don, 79, 80, 84, 86, 88, 92n56, 236 American Sign Language Shakespeare Baraka, Amiri, 6

Project, 195-96 Barnartt, Sharon N., 174

Americans with Disabilities Act, 205 Barrow, Mrs. Washington, 34

Anderson, Benedict, 67 Barthes, Roland, 118, 119 Anderson, Laurie, 6, 226 Bauman, H-Dirksen L., 13, 126, 217 257

Bauman, Robert, 177 Chinese calligraphy, 97, 107, 108 Baynton, Douglas C., 217 Chomsky, Noam, 122

Beach, Christopher, 7 Christiansen, John B., 174

Beat poetry, 6—7, II, 97, 224 Cinematic technique in sign language, Beckett, Samuel, 99, 226, 232n4 29-31, 62—63, IO9—I0, I5O—5I, 153; Bell, Alexander Graham, 52, 211 155, 156, 183, 201-2. See also Films

Bellugi, Ursula, 105, 122 Cixous, Héléne, 119 Benjamin, Walter, xv, xvili, xx, xxi, 230 Clapham, Michael, 59

Bergman, Eugene, 237 Clarke School for the Deaf, 218 Bergson, Henri, 197 Classifiers, linguistic, 30, 47nn10—I11, 150,

Bienvenu, M.]., 66 I5I, 152-53, 154

Bilingualism, 22, 32, 33, 46n3, 88 Clerc, Laurent, 23, 46—47nn5-6, 54

Bird Brain’s Society, 10 Closed captioning, 205 Blake, William, xxii, xxiii nI3, 235 Cochlear implants, 210-11, 217

Blindness, 4—5, 8 Cohn, Jim, 6, 10

Bloom, Harold, 61 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, xviii Body as medium for sign literature, 13-14, Colonialism, 217, 237—38 119, 129; and Derrida’s work, 13; and Commodification, 58, 64, 68

performance art, 131, 133-37, 140, Concrete poetry, 97, IO! 142-44; and poetry, xvii, 2, 5, 6, 8, Conley, Willy, 14, 71-72, 195-96, 200-214,

107, 130-31, 132, 133 236

Bragg, Bernard, 10, 57, 61, 104, I05, 109, Cook, David, 199

TO, TL TSt15 8.2 35. 237 Cook, Peter, 10, 14, 61, 108-9, I10, III, 137;

Bragg, Wolf, 80 on ASL education, 148—65; and FlyBrain, linguistic processing in, 122 ing Words performance, 10, 108, 111,

Brecht, Berthold, xx, xxi 153 TOA) 21819; 220, 221; 939, 938

Brentari, Diane, xviil Corker, Mairian, 15, 123 Bristol, Michael, 72, 73 Corngold, Stanley, 131 British Sign Language, 238 Costa, Tamara, 156

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 235 Covell, Jerry, 174, 176, 185

Bruce: [rixe57 Cressy, David, 66

Brueggemann, Brenda, 218, 232n3 Cultural identity, Deaf, 26, 33, 67, 68, 78,

Burnet, John, 51 160-61, 164, 213n3, 217—18 cummings, e. €., 62, 104, I0s

Calandra, Calvin, 165n6

Carlin, John, 54 Dada.73227

Carlson, Marvin, 135 Daniels, Bob, 72 Carmel, Simon, 32 Dante Alighieri, xvii Carnival, 13, 74, 75; 76, 77, 79, 80, 84-85, Davidson, Michael, 3—4, 14, 237, 238

89 Davis, Lennard J., 4-5, 67

Carroll, Lewis, 32, 61, 235 DawnPictures, 140 Cervantes, Lorna Dee, 226 DawnSignPress, 58, 59 Chaney, Lon, 198 Deaf clubs, 24, 26, 43-44, 48n25, 53, 54, Chaplin, Charlie, 195-96, 200, 202-5, 59, 60, 69N4, 74 204, 207-8, 210, 212—13 A Deaf Family Diary (play), 71, 74, 76, 83,

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 65 86, 88

Children of a Lesser God (Medoft), 216, Deaf schools, 8, 23-24, 26, 35, 41, 4707,

2195 231 71, 152, 154-55, 162, 163, 165nn1,5,

258 INDEX

218. See also Education in sign lan- aspects of, 173-76; transliteration of,

guage; Gallaudet University 186-93 Deafula (film), 74 Epic theater, Brechtian, xv, xx, xxi Deaf Way, 36, 80, 240 Erd, M. Williamson, 9 DEAF WORLD, 21-22, 24, 29, 32-34 Everson, William K., 199 Deconstruction, 119, 126

213n2 oi, 52

Deleuze, Gilles, 196-97, 199-200, 208, Face-to-face tradition, 11, 13, 2I—25, 32, 46, Derrida, Jacques, 13, 100, IOI, 109, 119-28, Fairmount Theatre of the Deaf (FTD), 80

295 92693307 FALLING ON HEARING EYES (ConDickinson, Emily, 1sni ley), 14, 72, 195, 198, 200-214 Dicksen, William, 199 Fanwood school, 154-55, 163, 165n5

Différance, 120-22, 124 Feather, John, 63

Digital media, 7-8 Feminism, 119, 135, 226

Disability, 15 Fenollosa, Ernest, 108

A Dogs Life (film), 195-96, 200, 202-5, Films: ASL culture made accessible by, 55,

207-8, 210, 212—13 59, 67, 68; ASL culture preserved by, Draganac, Raul, 165n6 23, 51-52, 55-56, 67, 68; ASL literaDVDs, 160, 161, 162, 164, 182 ture influenced by, 51-52, 61-65, 195204, 205, 207-8, 210, 219-13:

Eastman; Gilbert; 121423, 24,07, $75 63; ASL standardized by, 66; and protest epic by, 170-93, 236, 237 audience-performer relations, 56-57,

Edison, Thomas, 199 59-60, 68; and Chaplin’s work,

Education, oralist, 216—19, 221, 230 195-96, 200, 202-5, 207-8, 210, Education in sign language: and cine- 212-13; and cinematic technique in matic technique, 150-51, 153, 155, sign language, 29-31, 62-63, 109-10, 156; Peter Cook interviewed about, 150-51, 153, 155, 156, 183, 201-2; Deaf 148—65; and English language, 147, cultural identity promoted by, 148; and feedback process, 148, 149; 67-68; grammatical structure of, 110; and linguistic classifiers, 150, 151, and Krauel’s work, 34, 35, 46n4, 55, 152-53, 154; and linguistic structure, 64, 67; and poetry in sign language,

151-53; videos used for, 58, 59, 66, 99; print medium compared to,

147-50. See also Deaf schools 51-52; showing percussion signing,

Edwards, V., 46 35; showing translation of printed Eisdvik, Charles, 202 works, 32; showing translation of

Eisenstein, Elizabeth, 52 songs, 34; silent, 80, 195-204, 205,

Eliot, T. S., 64 207-8, 210, 212-13; and two-world

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, xvi condition, 74-75

English language, 37—41, 39, 67, 147, 148, Fingerspelled words, 41-42, 48n20, 150

JOOS D147; 221;-237.-936 Finnegan, Ruth, 53 Ennis, Bill, 12, 47n12, 57 Flying Words Project, 10-11, 62, 107-8, “Epic: Gallaudet Protest” (Eastman), TIT 13; 153 yp 1G4y 218-19, 220; 221, 332 170-86, 236, 237; collective agency Foley, John, 171, 172, 174, 177, 185 in, I7I, 175, 182-83; compared to Folktales, 31-32, 51 oral tradition, 170-72, 177, 179, For a Decent Living (Supalla), 57, 60, 63 184; and literary genre, 170-78, 185; Formalism, wu, 98 performative aspects of, 172, 176, Foucault, Michel, xix—xx, 15, 226 177-79, 182, 184-85; sociopolitical Fraser, Kathleen, 1o1

INDEX 259

Free verse, 97, 98, IOI Hernandez, Manny, 30-31, 110, 112

Freud, Sigmund, xviil Heterotopias, xix—xx Frost, Robert, 11, 61, 98, 101, 158 Higgins, Dick, 7 TAiischik «14°56

Gallaudet, Edward Miner, 32, 55 Hlibok, Greg, 169, 182 Gallaudet University: fight song at, 35; Homer, xvii, 2, 4-5, 8, 15, 171 freshmen’s rite of passage at, 32; Hotchkiss, John B., 23, 46n5

inauguration of, 54; protest at, Humphries, Tom, 9, 182, 217 67—68, 169—93; theater at, 71-72, 80, Hurt, William, 216

81, 91n36, 92n56 Husserl, Edmund, 126 Galloway, Terry, 134-35, 145n8

Gates, Henry Louis, 216, 231 “IT Am Ordered Now to Talk” (Flying

Gee, James Paul, 21, 51 Words), 218-19, 220, 221, 238

Genre, literary, 170-78, 185 Identity, Deaf. See Cultural identity, Deaf

German Sign Language, 128 Indiana, Robert, 227 Gesture: Benjamin on, xv, xvili—xix; Der- Indiana School for the Deaf, 162 rida on, 125; distinguished from sign, Institute for the Deaf, 198 152; and epic theater, xv, xx, xxi; as Institution Blues (play), 71, 74, 76, 78-79,

language, xvi—xxii; poetics of, xvi, 84, 88 XViil, Xxli—xxili n1; Rousseau on, xv, Instructional videos, 58, 59, 66, 147-50 XIX, 231; and utopianism, xvii, xix—xx International relations, 239—40

Gibson, Alison, 182, 183 Irigaray, Luce, 119 Ginsberg, Allen, 6, 10, 11, 158

Giuranna, Rosaria and Giuseppe, 239 Jacobowitz, E. Lynn, 96

Gloss signs, 152, 155 Jolson, Al, 199

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 99, 173 Jordan, Irving King, 67, 169, 170, 182

Goodman, Nelson, xvi Joyce, James, 64, 202 Goody, J., 21, 22

Gray, Spalding, 135-36 Kandinsky, Wassily, 105 Graybill, Patrick, 6, 12, 56, 83, 85-86, 87, Kannapell, George, 35, 60

88, 158, 236 Kant, Immanuel, xxi

Greet, Anne Hyde, 102, 103, 104 Keast, Missy, 138-40, 141-42 Grigely, Joseph, 14, 218, 227-31, 228, Kinnell, Galway, 6

233nn8—9 Klima, Edward, 105, 122

Guattari, Félix, 196—97 Koppel, Ted, 169 Kraft, Elinor, 12

Hamburg Notation System, 127-28 Krauel, Charles, 9, 34, 35, 46n4, 55, 64, Handshapes, 37-42, 39, 61, 64, 96, 154-55, 67

236, 238, 239 Krentz, Christopher B., 6, 8, 13, 119, 237

Hardy, Oliver, 201 Kristeva, Julia, 119 Harmon, Kristen C., 14 Kunitz, Stanley, 6

Hartman, Charles, 97, 102 Kuntze, Lon, 40, 140 Hathaway, Anne, 9

Havelock, Eric, 174 Labov, W., 29

Hawkins, Raymond, 156 Lacan, Jacques, xvill Hearing aids, 211, 213n4, 217 Lane, Harlan, 15, 123-24, 217

Hegel; G. W. Fy saa Language: Chomsky on, 122; Derrida on,

Henderson, Bruce, 76 120, 122; Emerson on, xvi; Goodman

760°. “INDEX

on, xvi; Rousseau on, xv, xvill; Saus- tation of, 218. See also Poetry in sign

sure on, 122 language; Storytelling in sign lanLanguage instinct, xvill, 3 guage

Laurel, Stan, 201 Live at SMI! series, 12, 57, 58, 62 Lectures in sign language, 54, 60 Logocentrism, 126, 224

Lefebvre, Henri, 72, 87 Logodice, Colleen, 165n5 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 127 Lord, Albert, 54, 60, 185

Leigh, Michael, 111 Lukacs, Georg, 174-75, 183 Lenis, Kelly, 165n6

Lentz, Ella Mae, 10, 11, 34, 56, 61, 62, 66, Malzkuhn, Brian, 55, 60, 61 106; 107; 1975. 158; 1595 1601s 2175 218, Malzkuhn, Eric, 12, 132

236; as performance artist, 132-33, Manning, Anita, 67

135, 141—42 Marentette, Paula E, 16n3

Leonardo da Vinci, 104 Marsh, William, 8

Lerner, Kenny, 10, 61, 62, 64, 109, 137, 153; Marshall, Ernest, 55

and Flying Words performance, Io, Marshall, Winfield E., 34

62, 153, 218—19, 220, 232, 238 Marvel, David, 198 Lexington School for the Deaf, 152, 154, Masten, Jeffrey, 100

163, 165nnl,5 Matlin, Marlee, 169, 209, 216

Lineation in sign poetry, 95—I10, 114-15; Maucere, John, 72 and Bragg’s work, 104, 105, 109, 110; McGregor, Robert P, 55 cinematic properties of, 109-10; and McLuhan, Marshall, xviii

Flying Words Project, 107-8; and Medoff, Mark, 216 kinetic composition, 107—9; and Merwin, W. S., 6 Lentz’s work, 106, 107; and phono- Meschonnic, Henri, 99 centrism, 98, 99-101; and Valli’s Miles, Dorothy, 236 work, 95-96, 98, 99, IOI, 106; and Miller, Mary Beth, 12, 57, 62 visual art, 98—99, 104, 105, 108; and Milton, John, xvii, xix, 5 visual composition, 104-6; and Mirzoeff, Nicholas, 196, 198, 199

visual poetry, IoI—2, 103-4 “Missing Children” (Rennie), 138-40, 141, Literature in sign language: academization 161 of, 65; compared to oral literature, Mitchell, W. J. T., 3, 15, 102 5-7, 21-22, 53, 170-72, 177, 179, 184; Modernism, 97 and cultural identity, 33; and Der- Moliére, 47n6 rida’s theory of signification, 119—20, Morris, Garrett, 205, 206

128; and educational practices, Mow, Shanny, 72, 236 147—65; emergence of, 8-12; and epic My Third Eye (play), 9, 55, 71, 75-76

form, 170-86; film/video as influ- 77-79, 79825 83, 845 85, 88,235 ence on, 51, 52, 60—65; film/video

used for preserving, 56, 147, 148; National Association of the Deaf (NAD), genre boundaries challenged by, 12; 23, DAS ST, 55. 67 literary criticism of, 9, 12, 65, 69n2; National Fraternal Society of the Deaf, 24 literary practice redefined by, 2-4; Nationalism, 67, 237, 239 marginality of, 5, 6; ownership of, National Technical Institute for the Deaf

42-43, 48n24, 132, 135; as perfor- (N'TID), 72, 79-80, 142, 150, 164 mance, 131-44; phonocentrism chal- National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), 23, lenged:- by, xVil; 3545555 217, 219;,237: 81-82; 110, 158; 235; 236 and utopianism, xvii; voice interpre- Nelson, Jennifer L., 13

INDEX 261

Ng, Wilson, 157 Pinker, Stephen, xvii—xviii Norman, Freda, 35, 42 Plato, 16n4

Norton, Audree, 235 Poetic Images group, 137—40 Poetry: and digital media, 7-8; Emerson

Ohio School for the Deaf, 41 on, xvi; Goodman on, xvi; ideologi-

Okpewho, I., 25, 43, 45 cal determination of, 99-100; and

Oliver, Mary, 6 lineation, 95, 97-98, 99-101; and

Olson, Charles, 0, 224 print medium, 62; revitalization of Ong, Walter J., 51, 53, 56, 173 oral, 6; unconventional forms of, Oralism, 217, 218, 219, 230 131-39? Visiial, "7-8; 1012. 70345, 132 Oral literature, 5—7, 21-22, 52-54; Gal- Poetry in sign language: body as medium

laudet protest epic compared to, for, xvii, 2, 5, 6, 8, 107, 130-31, 132,

170-72, 177, 179, 184, 185 133; clnematic properties of, 99, Ownership of sign literature, 42-43, 109-14, 155; compared to oral tradi-

48n24, 132, 135 tion, 5-7; compared to visual art,

98—99, 108; and educational prac-

Padden, Carol A., 9, 182, 217 tices, 154-55, 156-57, 158; emergence

Panara, Robert, 79 of, 9-11, 236; film/video as medium Parade (NTD production), 71, 82, 85 for, 51, 52, 60-62, 64, 130; and Gal-

Peirce, ©. 1907 laudet protest epic, 170, 172; genre Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, 163 boundaries challenged by, 12; and

Percussion signing, 34—36 handshapes, 154-55, 236, 238, 239;

Pérez Firmat, Gustavo, 80 internationalization of, 239; and

Performance: body as medium for, 131, kinetic composition, 107—9; and lin133-37; and Eastman’s protest epic, eation, 95—I10, 114-15; and linguistic 172, 176, 177—78, 182, 184—85; inter- classifiers, 152, 155; literary criticism

preted by non-authorial performers, of, 69n2; literary practice redefined 136—40; and Lentz’s work, 132-33, by, 9-10; new sign for, 4; ownership 135; media’s impact on, 56-57, of, 132, 135; as performance, xvii, 2, 60-62, 65; ownership of, 132, 135; 5-7, 13-14, 131-33, 136-44; phonosign poetry as, xvll, 2, 5-7, 10, 13-14, centrism challenged by, xvii, 1-2, 4, 131-33, 136-44; textual authority 5, 98, 99-101, 217, 237; and rhymes, problematized in, 135-36, 143-44, 96, IOI, 106, 154; and visuality, 5, 8, 232n3; video as medium for preserv- 104—6, 105; visual vernacular teching, 1330-36 passim, 145n2. See also nique in, IO, II, 110

Speech in Deaf performance Poizner, Howard, 122

Perloff, Marjorie, 99, 132 Political relations: and literary genre, Peters, Cynthia L., 48n20; 235,237 173-76; and visual screaming, 196-98

Petitto, Laura Ann, 16n3 Pope, Alexander, 96 Philip, Marie, 44 Postcolonialism, 217, 237-38, 239

Phonocentrism, xvii, I, 3, 4, 5, 13, 98, Postmodernism, 97—98, 226 99-101, 237; and Derrida’s theory of Pound, Ezra, 11, 108 signification, 119, 120, 125, 226, Print medium: artistic practice influenced 233n7; and speech in Deaf perfor- by, 60-63; and audience-artist rela-

mance, 217, 218, 224, 226 tions, 56-57, 59, 63-64; cultural

Photography, 202 accessibility enhanced by, 54-55, 66; Pidgin Sign English (PSE), 147, 165n1, cultural development promoted by,

214N7 51-52, 68; cultural preservation

262 INDEX

enhanced by, 55; language standard- Sign Media, Inc., 58, 59 ized by, 65—66; literacy promoted by, Sign-mime, 201, 210 66; literary criticism biased toward, SignRise Cultural Arts, 84, 86, 88 202; sign language represented in, Silent films, 80, 195-204, 205, 207—8, 210,

22, 46n2, 48n20, 53, 127-28, 145n4 212-13

PSE. See Pidgin Sign English Simonides of Keos, 7

Puppet paws, 209-10 Smith, Anna Deavere, 136 Smooth signers, 24—25, 26, 144

Rafael, Vicente, 237 Snyder, Gary, 224

Ramirez, Sylvia, 165n6 Sollars, Werner, 78, 79 Redden, Laura, 53 Songs in sign language, 33-34, 47NI2, 55, Redmond, Granville, 196, 198, 203, 204, 64

208 Speech, Derrida’s theory of, 120, 122, Reich, Maddy, 165ns5 124-28, 226 Rennie, Debbie, 106, 137-39, 141, 142, 158, Speech in Deaf performance: and

T6217 audience-performer relations, 219,

Rhyme, 96, 101, 106, 154 224; and biculturalism, 221, 227; and

Richard, Jaine, 137 Flying Words’ performance, 218-19, Rimbaud, Arthur, 99 220, 221, 232; and Joseph Grigely’s Rivera, David, 239 textual art; 14s 218, 927—31; 326, Robinson, Carol L., 14, 128 233nn8—9; and phonocentrism, 217,

Robinson, David, 196 218; 22.4, 2263 as scandal, 216—17; Romero, Emerson, 80, 198 226, 232; and “think-hearing” sign, Rose, Heidi M., 12-13 217, 232; and Aaron Williamson’s Rothenberg, Jerome, 6, 224 peformances, 14, 218, 221-22, 223, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, xv, XVill, 126, 225, 224-26, 225, 232nn4—5, 233n7, 238

231 Spilman, Jane, 179, 180

Rubinstein, Raphael, 229 Stallybrass, Peter, 79, 100

Russell, Mark, 135-36 Steiner, Wendy, 7

Rutherford, Susan, 31-32, 41, 47n8, 48n21 Stern, Carol Simpson, 76 Sternberg, Martin L. A., 165n8

Saussure, Ferdinand de, 122, 197, 224 Sterne, Laurence, 62

Schneemann, Carolee, 6 Stokoe, William, 3, 62, 109, 110, 128 Schrag, Calvin O., 134 Storytelling in sign language: and ABC Schuchman, John S., 196, 198, 203 stories, 8, 37-38, 40—41, 154; and Shakespeare, William, 82-83, 128, 195 audience relations, 27—28, 43-45, 573

Shange, Ntozake, 6 cinematic technique in, 29-31, Sienkewicz, T., 46 62-63, 109, 150-51, 155, 156, 183,

Sign language: cultural identity based on, 201-2; compared to oral tradition, 213n3; as gesture language, XVI-XXI; 21-22, 170-72, 177, 179, 184; conlinguistic classification of, 3; and straints in, 37—42; and cultural idenutopianism, xvii, xix—xx; written tity, 26, 33; at Deaf clubs, 24, 26, forms of, 145n4. See also American 43-44, 48n25; at Deaf schools, Sign Language (ASL); British Sign 23-24, 26; and educational practices, Language; German Sign Language; 150-57; and face-to-face tradition, 11,

Pidgin Sign English (PSE) 13, 21-25, 46; film as influence on, “Sign /anguish,” 195, 207, 213nI 52; and fingerspelled words, 41-42; Sign Me Alice (play), 71, 72, 74, 86, 91n36 and folktales, 31-32; and Gallaudet

INDEX 263

Storytelling in sign language (continued) Translation, 32—33, 34, 47Nn12—13, $3, 61,

protest, 170-93; genre boundaries 104, 105, 182, 183, 235, 239 challenged by, 12; handshapes in, Twombly, Cy, 227 37-42, 39; literary criticism of, 69n2;

and number stories, 8, 41; and own- Utopianism, xvii, xix—xx , 201 ership of stories, 42-43, 48n24; paralinguistic elements of, 27—28, 37, 40; Valli, Clayton, 10, I1, 13, 60, 61, 64, 65, personal experience as subject of, 29; 133, 137, 158, 159, 217, 236; and cine-

and “smooth signers,” 24-25, 26; matic technique, 112-14; and pertellers’ control of, 26—28; and tellers’ formance, 140-42, 218; and poetic

training and development, 25-26; lineation, 95-96, 98, 99, IOI, 106 and translation of printed works, Vaudeville, 73, 79-81, 83, 87, 88-89 32-33; venues for, 24, 26, 43-44; and Veditz, George W., 51, 55, 59; 60, 69, 237

visual vernacular technique, 151 Velez, Joe; 9, 325235

Subculture, politics of, 173 Verhoosky, Michele, 72

Supalla, David, 47n12 Vickers, Nancy, 100

Supalla; Sani, 11) 31, 33; 57.6365; 137; Video: ASL culture influenced by, 9, 13,

2305237230 46, §2; 55, 57-65, 66, 68, 119, I60—61; Supalla, Ted, 56, 65 ASL instruction using, 58, 59, 66, Swett, William B., 54 147-50; ASL performance preserved by, 12, 32, 36, 42, 77, 82, 130-36 pas-

Tales from a Clubroom (play), 71, 74 sim; 145n2; 147; 148, 174; 232N33 as Teaching. See Education, oralist; Educa- ASL “writing,” 119, 127, 128

tion in sign language Visual art, 7-8, 98-99, 104, 105, 108 Television broadcasts, 75, 169, 205. See also Visual poetry, IoI-2, 103-4

Video Visual screaming, 195-98, 200, 203-13

Tennyson, Alfred, 99 Visual vernacular technique, Io, 11, 110, Textual att; 297-31, 228, 933nn8—9 I5I

Theater, social history of, 72-74 Voice: and Derrida’s theory of significaTheater in sign language: at academic tion, 120, 124, 126, 127; and poetry in institutions, 71-72, 79-81, 91n36, sign language, 130 92n56; and audience relations,

84-85, 87-88; and Bakhtin’s critical Walcott, Derek, 173 work, 13, 75, 79, 84-85; and carnival, Waldman, Anne, 6 13, 74; 75; 765 773 79; 80, 84—85, 89; Weinberg, Louis, 198 collaboration in, 83-88; and cultural White, Allon, 79

identity, 78; diversity of, 71-72; Whitman, Walt, 99-100 ensemble performance in, 86-87; Williams, William Carlos, 62, 99 heterogeneous structure of, 79-83, Williamson, Aaron, 14, 218, 221-22, 223, 88—89; and inversion, 76—77; social 224-26, 225, 229, 231, 232nn4—5,

engagement of, 71, 74; and two- 233N7, 238-39 world condition, 74—75; and vaude- Wolter, Liz, 14 ville, 79-81, 83, 87, 88-89; women Woolf, Virginia, 202 in, 90n17. See also Fairmount The- Wrigley, Owen, 15, 213n3, 221 atre of the Deaf (FTD); National Writing, Derrida’s theory of, 119-22,

Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) 124—25, 127-28 “Think-hearing,” sign for, 217, 232

Thomas, Dylan, 81, 89 Zinser, Elizabeth, 169 264 INDEX

Compositor: Sheridan Books, Inc. Text: 11/14 Adobe Garamond Display: Perpetua, Adobe Garamond Indexer: Andrew Joron Printer/Binder: Sheridan Books, Inc.